The Lonely And The Lost
by Ramowen
Summary: After having saved Toby from his violent father, Sarah is willingly led into the Underground by the Goblin King. But what does he want from her? Is he simply very generous or is he playing his old coldhearted games again? And have the siblings truly escap
1.

A wile ago, quite late at night, the urge to write a short story called "A Promise" came over me. I still do not quite know where it came from, so you better direct either your blame or praise to my muse.  
  
Anyway, to my astonishment a lot of people liked the story and were really very generous with their comments. Quite a few of them were adamant I should write a sequel.  
  
Now I really wrote "A Promise" to stand on its own, and I still believe it could. But when I did start to write its sequel "The Lonely and the Lost" I realized I had to make a rather odd reference to "A Promise" what in essence was becoming a prologue. My best solution was to simply paste "A Promise" above chapter one of "The Lonely and the Lost" and send in this updated version. It will not matter much, I believe, to the people who are already following this story. But new readers might have an easier start with it.  
  
Anyways, enjoy!  
  
Ramowen   
  
  
  
Disclaimer: all the usual suspects- er, I mean 'applies'.  
  
  
  
This story is far from sweet. So watch it people, this is a -dark- one that has nothing to do with my Diamond Tears series. Just one of those things you can't get out of your mind unless you actually write it down.  
  
PG-13 for implied violence.  
  
  
A Promise  
  
The storm was howling, rain battered the windows, the lid of a trashcan danced clanking and banging trough the street.   
  
It was so dark outside, so dark.   
  
Lightening crackled, harsh light blackened the shadows.  
  
Toby cried silently, too tired and too scared to make his moans truly heard. His heart-wrenching sobs however would not stop, as if the child knew nothing else in his life but this endless grief.  
  
"Oh Toby stop it!" Sarah said impatiently. She pushed Lancelot aside and lifted her now two-year-old sibling from his bed. He still slept in his parent's room.  
  
The girl pulled the boy up to her shoulder and folded her arms around the tiny body. She paced the room, hoping against hope that the movement would still the child. For a second or two it seemed to help.  
  
Thunder shook the house, drummed the doors, crashed against the temples of Sarah's aching head. Downstairs another kind of crash was heard, The crash of a plate fragmentized to dust on the tiled kitchen floor. The shrieking voice of the stepmother and the loud harsh shouts of the father. A chair was shoved out of the way and fell.  
  
"Just like before- but worse!" muttered Sarah.  
  
Another sharp flash of lightening and bangs of thunder, so loud the storm was practically above their very house now. The startled little boy moved in Sarah's arms, shrieked with the movement and cried a little louder, but not much.  
  
"O, knock it off- knock it off!"  
  
Sarah held her brother at arms length and looked at him with desperate questioning eyes.  
  
"I can't do it again, can I? Would he take you twice?"  
  
More harsh words drifted up from below. Sarah could not make out what the argument was about. Holding the boy like this, wondering if she dared say the words again, Sarah got a glimpse of herself in the mirror. Looking at her likeness, if only for such a short moment, made her own eyes sting. She pulled the boy against herself and hid her tears against his soft little body. Making sure she held him not too tight. He unconsciously reached for her hair and pulled.  
  
"Auch!" Sarah said and untangled the small hand from her locks. She stared at the little arm and rubbed it gently, but the boy pulled away and squealed.  
  
Sarah shivered and moaned herself now, her headache growing worse. Her pace agitated and frightened. Another loud bang from below and another crash of now broken plates or cups-  
  
"No more," she whispered. "Please, no more."  
  
Clutching the boy against her chest, she whispered the infamous words: "O God Toby- I whish the goblins would take you away, right now."  
  
  
The lightning, the thunder, the dark, the silence.  
  
  
Sarah was momentarily blinded by the utter darkness. The whole house seemed to hold its breath and it was silent, below.  
  
Sarah backed against the wall. She could hear them, scurrying about. How they opened and closed the drawers, skittered under the blankets of the bed to the floor. And jumped Toby's cot to find it empty. They neared her from all sides- why not, she knew them. His Goblins.  
  
"Mine, mine, mine."  
"Give 'im to us love- you said the words."  
One added in singsong "She said the wo-ords, she said the wo-ords".  
  
In the eyes of the goblins Sarah saw an evil glee, a sparkle of menace. They moved awkwardly about the room, and threatened to come at her en masse. But they seemed also happy and self-assured- funny even.  
  
"Get lost- get away from him!" she shouted and kicked the nearest little troll away. He bumped against the ones behind him and they all fell in a messy heap, with their high pitched mocking laughter and giggles somehow a comfort to the cowering girl.  
  
Then, as both feared and expected, the white owl flapped its frantic wings against the French windows that opened on their own violation. The majestic bird dove into the room, swirled around and back again. Another crash of lightning and more raging thunder. In this light he stood. Jareth, the ominous Goblin King had come to claim his prize.  
  
Hands on the windowsill, dressed in black and his cape swirling with the wind he glared at Sarah. She looked at him, still clutching her brother close, the goblins disappearing around the room.   
  
So much the same in all his splendor and majesty, so dark and alluring and so much as she remembered him. Until she met the uneven eyes.  
  
Jareth looked down at her with raised chin ad a sardonic smile. Highly amused with the surprise that of all people it was -Sarah- who offered her sibling -twice-. The only one who had ever beaten him at his own game. What twist of fate brought the silly girl and the boy-child under his spell again? What was her -game-? Yet, he would play it. Till the -end- this time. This time, neither would escape- neither!  
  
"Goblin King?" she whispered.  
"What? What was that?" Jareth held his hand behind his ear to hear. "Ah, so you -do- remember me. How flattering."  
Sarah did not react to his quip. Jareth cocked one brow, towered over Sarah and her brother and chuckled.  
"Give -me- the child." Another low chuckle. "Oh come now Sarah. What is said is said. Although I do confess to be at al loss why what was said has been said -again-. After all the trouble you went through last time to get him back."  
  
Nothing, no reaction. Nothing more than a tremble that ran trough the girl. Fright? His beautiful feisty Sarah, who had beaten his illusions, fought his monsters- Who had rejected -him- She sat there on the cold floor cowering behind a babe? Something was very wrong here.  
  
"You-"  
  
"Yes?" he drawled, kneeling in front of the girl to appear so much closer. She stared away from him, did not meet his eyes. Gently he touched her chin with one gloved hand to make her turn her gaze, but she pushed him away.  
  
"You -do- take care of your goblins- don't you? You don't really let them get hurt, do you?"  
  
Jareth balked and sat on his knees, dumbfounded. What a totally nonsensical question. Of course he did not 'hurt' his subjects. Well, apart from the occasional kick he gave them if they were in his way. Or a stinking bath in the bog.  
  
Icily he said "Contrary to popular belief, my dear, I do not derive pleasure from the physical discomfort of my subjects. Your brother will be a goblin- not harmed!"  
  
Sarah gave Toby one final hug. "Take him then." And she pushed the boy into Jareth's arms.  
  
"Just like that?" he asked, baffled. Sarah had turned to the wall and seemed to make herself a part of it. She had started crying now and refused to look up."  
  
"Just take him and go! Please." She cried. Jareth did not move. He held the boy gingerly, but he was too shocked to stand and simply leave.   
  
Sarah -wanted-, really truly wanted the boy taken away. And it was not some heartless decision of a spoiled brat either, the girl was truly heartbroken over the loss of the boy. Her shoulders shook from crying, grieving a true loss.  
  
She had not called out to him to play their game again. She would not come. She simply wanted her brother away and nothing more.   
  
Nothing.  
  
Jareth stood, unable to comprehend or comfort the broken girl at his feet. He would probably never see her again.   
  
Suddenly he narrowed his eyes at her and anger distorted his features. Was she using him again? What kind of twisted ploy could this be? He stepped away, into the light of his own world and held the boy a bit tighter, hesitantly. One foot still in -her- world. The boy already taken away to the other and only a dream could cross.  
  
The child shrieked in agony. Shocked the Goblin King stared at Toby. Gently holding him up on one arm he touched the boy's ribcage with his free hand- and saw pain in the child's eyes. He rolled up Toby's shirt and gasped. The whole of the boy's left side was blotched with ugly yellow and purple marks, as if somebody had -kicked- him. In the sunlight Jareth saw scorch-marks on the child's chubby arms. Small red and broken punctures- as if somebody had pressed a burning cigarette against the tender flesh. Jareth closed his eyes- and heard that soft grief stricken voice again 'You -do- take care of your Goblins' don't you?'  
  
Better a Goblin than exposed to tortures like this? O Great Oberon-  
  
Better alone to take the blows than allowing the boy to receive any? How had he dared to think her weak! And if their caretakers thought so little of the youngest child, what would they not do to -her-, especially when the other was missing! Gently Jareth kissed the boy's forehead, casting a healing spell over him and finally allowing him sleep. One foot still in her world, the Goblin King turned.  
  
"Are you sure you do not wish to fight over your brother?" Jareth asked softly, graciously kneeling at the girl's side.  
  
With dull eyes Sarah looked up at him- she had said no- she had given him Toby- what more could he want?  
  
"I don't understand-"  
  
Jareth smiled sadly: "You never did."  
  
Downstairs, the screaming had begun. Sarah heard a dull thud and her stepmother screamed again. Later she would beg. Later still she, like Sarah's own mother, would learn to keep still. It was over so much quicker if you made no sound at all.  
  
But this second wife had not learned yet. She still fought, and screamed and kicked. And if nothing worked against her husband, than there were other ways not to be powerless.  
  
"They -don't- deserve you! Either of you!" Jareth hissed.  
  
At his anger, Sarah lifted her head and faced her erstwhile adversary, but only with a sideways glance. Shifting the sleeping Toby a little, Jareth made room for his right had to cup Sarah's chin and make her face him. His startled eyes grew wider, but she did not resist. From brow to cheek, Sarah's face had been blackened by a man's fist, and even now she tried to hide the mark as if the blow had been her fault, her shame.  
  
"Oh my brave Sarah- why did you not call out for me?"  
  
Sarah's eyes grew hard. "For you! I destroyed you-" her eyes threatened to fill with tears again.  
  
"Hardly my dear- you destroyed our game, never me."  
  
Still holding on to the sleeping boy, still cupping her chin, Jareth lightly touched his forehead to hers. "I promised you I would be there for you..."  
  
Still not moving- and not moving -away-, she said "That was a dream".  
  
Jareth chuckled lightly: "I promised you your dreams."  
  
Sarah closed her eyes as if in pain. "But you already have my brother- I have given him to you."  
  
Jareth swallowed. Moving his face a little upward so his nose brushed alongside hers and he felt her shiver. His lips gently caressed her forehead- he did not kiss her, but whispered in a slightly menacing voice: "If you fight me this time- If you fail -this- time, I will never, ever allow you to go home again. You will never see your parents back again. I promise you."  
  
Jareth let go of the girl's chin, breathing the scent of her hair, trailed with his hand the blemish on her face and allowed her to feel it disappear.  
  
Sarah still did not move. "You sound so horrible- you always did."  
  
"I always meant what I said."  
  
Sarah sat back now, her eyes clear and her composure calm. She looked at her sleeping brother and frowned.  
  
"The Fay cannot work metal, my sweet. Nor steel, gold or silver. It is not in our nature."  
  
"And so?"  
  
With his free hand Jareth indicated his pendant. "You humans have such lovely workmanship in these matters- why waste that on Goblins. There is a very lively community of smiths and craftsmen in my Labyrinth. I think Toby will feel quite at ho-"  
  
Sarah placed one small finger against Jareth's lips and made him stop talking with a smile. There was a fire in his mismatched eyes that made something shiver twist inside her- but she had no answer for it. Gently the Goblin King took her hand in his and kissed the tips of her fingers.  
  
"You keep surprising me, my sweet."  
  
Jareth helped Sarah on her feet. She looked worried at the door of the room.  
  
"Tonight I shall cast a spell over your stepmother, giving her the good sense to leave this man and to go to your worlds law. Right now they seem to have exhausted their supply of table-wear. He will not beat her again."  
  
"Thank you.."  
  
Jareth made gracious little bow and waved Sarah through the French doors. She found herself back on the hill with the tree and the clock, overlooking the Labyrinth.  
  
"You have thirteen ours from now, my Sarah."  
  
"Your Sarah?" she joked.  
  
Jareth smiled ever so slightly. "Come," he said reaching out to her. Behind the Goblin King the hands on the face of the clock spun like mad. At this rate, she had only seconds to make it to the Castle Behind the Goblin City to save herself and Toby. She smiled up at the King and took his hand.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
The Lonely and the Lost  
  
  
It was the doomed fall of 1987. The October storms had relented somewhat and the winter's chill could already be felt in the winds. It rained too often, and some dreaded the long lonely evenings in homes grown too big and too empty. Those were the ones who looked for company and comfort among strangers. Not for conversation, not for empty carnal pleasures. It was the simple wish not to be left alone.  
  
The young disinterested waitress off the Bluebell Bar replaced the lone man's empty glass with bourbon. She took away his plate to the kitchen and made a little wager with herself. Would he still be sitting in the cozy dark wooden boot, surrounded by the three screaming empty seats upon her return? Which would mean he would leave soon and reasonably sober. Or would he have found his way to the other barflies, already waiting for his refill? She had seen his face on TV. Trying to take the hand of his wife, who almost discreetly pulled away. The pictures of his children and the description of what they might be wearing. So sad. But than again, shit happens. And it sells liquor.  
  
The Bluebell Bar was a -nice- shadowy place where the thirty-somethings went to be 'alone' or with their mates and dates. The music was mild, sixties and early seventies, no rock. There was a billiards pool where aging young men showed off the prowess learned when the music had been new and their days spend outside office buildings. The wooden floor lay beneath a thin layer of fine sand that made little noises at the late afternoon and was easily swept away with the evening's dirt. Tobacco had left its stain on the once white walls. Creamy patches against the brown betraying places where a decoration had been removed. Luxury cars, artistically photographed with a fifties version of scantly-clad-woman on top, cartoons of movie-stars and some signed photographs of Doris Day and John Wayne. Corny wicker lamps giving faint yellowish light. And everywhere red or white plastic bulbs with slow burning candles. It was a moderate place for the moderately drunk.  
  
Every time Robert Williams entered the bar he swore he would eat there only. Just a meal, and leave. Yet more oft than not the evening ended by the lady who served him his bourbon calling him a cab. A cab for a cad. A cab for the man who had lost not one, but two wives through his violent behavior towards them, and his children to boot. Loosing one wife was tragic, but a whole family -twice- boarded on carelessness. Behind his back, that was what was told.   
  
The children were on milk cartons everywhere. They had been an item on local television. He had been -civil-, sitting next to that disloyal bitch that had bore him a son and then left everything to rot. He had only tried to correct them, just like his father.  
  
He had become, just like his father.  
  
Once, he had stood up against his father. Told him to go hang. That whatever had happened in the past was no excuse for the present.   
  
Just like Sarah had stood up against him. He had rewarded her insolence just like his father had rewarded him. And Sarah had reacted as was predictable by now, taking the family history into account. She had upped and left. She had broken his heart.  
  
She had broken his heart!  
  
The more he drank the clearer the matter became.  
  
Robert had never been drinking. Never! It wasn't his fault- he mourned his family. Who could blame him for that?  
  
He had been strict with his children. But the world outside was dangerous. Filled with lechers. Rapists. Muggers. Boys who would get a young lovely girl like Sarah pregnant and leave her to bleed for it. The little whore.  
  
But she had listened to him, before he was foolish enough to remarry. His little princess. He had made sure she knew he loved his little princess. In those days he had never been forced to even spank the girl. Timid and shy after her mother had walked out on them. For her so-called career! Good God what real mother could do such a thing. He had easily won the child in the divorce court. He, a respectable provider, she, a notorious adulteress and actress to boot. Even if it was the usual to give the children to the mother, he had won. And the beauty of it all was that little princess Sarah had believed her mother cared not for her anymore. Timid and shy and in love with her books and her toys. The girl had worshipped him. But then she turned twelve and needed a mothers hand to guide her too adulthood. What a mistake to make.  
  
Robert ordered another drink.  
  
At first he had allowed the child not to like the new mother. A caring strong woman. Who taught the girl to do homework and chores and gave the little princess responsibilities. In return he gave Karen a son.  
  
Yet- his little Sarah fled. Turned more and more into the woman he had never wanted to lay eyes on again. So he stopped siding with the girl and allowed his new wife to control the girl even firmer. It did not work. The fantasy did not stop. The walks in the park did not stop.   
Until that one-day when Sarah suddenly cleaned up her room. The toys went to the attic and a knowing smile came to her face.  
  
No more of the timid Sarah. No more of the shy princess. No more adoring daddy. Fawning over Toby, which had to be good in its own way-  
  
Then the boys came. And the boys went. As if the little slut was searching something in them she could not find.   
  
He grounded her. And the first serious argument with Karen came. Karen wanted for Sarah to go out dancing. 'Having fun' the bitch called it. He had warned Karen not to talk back at him like that. He had warned her too often already.  
  
In the hospital they had believed the fallen-of-the-stairs story and the resulting broken arm. They believed Toby's injury to be Sarah's fault, the first time at least. His son the weak spot with both the females of his household.  
  
Control was easily regained. Over Sarah at least. The wife was harder.  
  
Later he understood Sarah had regained the childhood memories of watching her biological mother being disciplined. Later he understood the girls compliance came not from obedience, but from being protective towards her brother. Later, just before he started to beat her up too, he had seen the defiance and loathing in the girls eyes. The hatred even. Karen had made his little princess -hate- him!  
  
Karen had made him hurt his child- so he had made her hurt hers. It was logical and just.  
So he made her put out her cigarettes on the kid. Funny how quickly some people could quit smoking. For others it took months- forever.  
Funny thing, smoking.   
  
Robert waved his emptied glass to the waitress and received his refill.  
  
Good thing, for her at last, the little princess had stopped going to the park such an awful lot. Right after she had put away her toys. Something had happened to the girl the night she had put away her toys. That was it- that was the night it all began to fall down. The night he had lost his little princess and Sarah had begun to grow into a young woman. It was crucial, and he pounded the bar with his fist with the notion, absolutely crucial, he would find out what had happened the night Sarah put away her toys.  
  
The waitress lifted one brow in a quizzical stare at the man who was slowly getting really drunk. An ugly drunkenness. The well-dressed businessman tended to forget where he was, making noises, pounding the bar or table- and sometimes cussing at her for the mere fact she was woman. Poor sod- First his children disappeared because his teenage daughter abducted her baby brother to run to god-knows-where, and his wife promptly leaving him- No wonder he hated women.  
  
Before, Sarah never took many friends home. She came straight home. Or did she? Played in the park a lot. Dog for protection. Probably was not playing at all. Home at night, but by god what had the little bitch been doing during the daytime! She probably lay rotting in some ditch somewhere by now. Served her right.  
  
O God- what -if- his little baby was laying in some ditch somewhere? What -if- she was under the spell of some cruel man? He could not protect her now- who would protect his lovely daughter? Who would bring home his only son? Who would the child be calling 'daddy'?  
  
  
  
The King's hand felt warm beneath the black leather of his glove. A warmer hand than a human hand, Sarah observed. Yet his face was set in marble, composed and without emotion. She could not read him. It frightened her a little.   
  
The orange red sky was streaked with purple and pink streaks as if a painter had used it to practice his stokes on. The dry desert like hill with its sparse growth threw up dust with every step, yellow dirt mingled with tiny silver sparks. Before her, in the distance, lay the majestic Labyrinth with its patchwork of puzzles, hedge mazes and forests. Sarah loved it, longed for it, had missed it with a passion she had not realized existed within her. And this frightened her a lot.  
  
As if reading her changing mood, she felt a little assuring pinch in the hand he held and when she looked up at him, that little half smile had returned. The King pulled her a little closer to him, taking care neither of them would stumble on their leisurely walk downhill towards the outer wall of the Labyrinth.  
  
"Doubts?" he almost whispered.  
  
Sarah could hear the clock behind her strike one, the hour past the time of her escape. Yet somehow she got the feeling that her stay here would be a voluntary one. Jareth apparently was letting her know she -could- return, if she asked for it. Had she had any doubts at all, his question about them vanquished them.   
  
But perhaps that had been his only intention. The Goblin King was after all nothing if not a great manipulator.  
  
Sarah looked down, a little insecure how to respond. Did she have doubts? With her parents last argument still ringing in her ears? She glanced sideways at her one time adversary and was about to tell him no, when her jaw dropped. She stared at Jareth and had to make a conscious effort to close her mouth and meet his eyes.  
  
"What?" he chuckled, knowing full well why the girl seemed so surprised.  
  
She could read the amusement in his eyes that seemed a lot less cold than a moment ago. 'Oh great', she thought, 'now he thinks I'm funny.'  
  
"Well?"  
  
Odd how a man could say so much with so little.  
  
"It's just that last time I looked at you, you were wearing an armor and all black-"  
  
Jareth allowed himself that wry half-smile again. His attire had indeed changed and he was now clad in a more 'casual' outfit. A shirt of darkest green shimmering silk, cut low to reveal the dangling pendant he always wore, green tights with a vague print on them like the scales of a snake or dragon, a brown suede waistcoat, knee-high boots to match. An open forest green jacket hugged his shoulders, set off with dark brown fur and held in it's place with an elegant golden chain for his sleeves hung empty at his sides. Two rows of golden buttons sparkled when he moved. He had a dark twisted wooden cane tucked under his left arm, topped by a golden snake's head with eyes of jade, holding a crystal orb between it's ivory fangs. He shrugged and finally let go of Sarah's hand, seemingly checking if Toby was still comfortable before he turned to the girl again. Making sure she had been able to get a good look at him without thinking herself too obtrusive.   
  
"For the remainder of the day I shall take you to my castle and tomorrow I shall show you the village I spoke about. But first I thought to reintroduce you to an old friend of yours. Since he -is- your friend I did not think it would be appropriate to look too threatening and all that."  
  
"How considerate."  
  
"Are you mocking me, girl?"  
  
"Oh I would not dare. Especially now I understand you preserve the privilege of showing off, -er- up in your armor is one preserved for the cowering siblings of wished away children." Sarah stated, almost able to hold a straight face.  
  
"Sarah-" Jareth warned while waving a finger at her. "Do not forget, you and your brother are my -loyal- subjects now."  
  
Sarah smiled completely without fear. She was sure now there was an amused glint in Jareth's eyes that had not been there before. It certainly had been missing in their confrontation almost a year ago now.  
  
"Yes, Your Majesty." said Sarah and she curtsied rather elegantly for a twenty century teenager.  
  
Jareth's little smile turned wry. "You did not answer me, my sweet."  
  
"No. No doubts."  
  
"Good." Jareth turned away, while pointing downhill with his cane.   
  
"Be careful now, it is getting steep here."  
  
Again that little half smile on his features. At least he wasn't smirking at her, the smile, however small, seemed genuine. And there was just this little something about men carrying young children. Something softening in the way he carried the small burden. Something practiced. As if he was carrying babies around all the time. Which considering the number of Goblins running around was probably true. Jareth really was being very generous towards her and Toby- but she'd be damned if she said so.  
  
"Speaking of friends- how are Hoggle and Ludo and Didymus? I mean- I haven't seen them for the longest time. I called them- but they never came back."  
  
Jareth sighed. "Sarah-"  
  
The girl faced the King again.  
  
"That was my doing."  
  
"But-"  
  
Jareth held up the hand with the cane in a gesture to silence her.  
  
"The portal through the mirror is opened by magic. My magic, I might add. I needed it for other purposes. I could not afford their comings and goings to your world."  
  
For a moment he stared at the sleeping boy.   
  
"If I had known I would have -ordered- them to you."  
  
"So- you haven't -done- anything to them, have you?"  
  
Jareth's gaze upon the girl was cold and he did not answer. Sarah looked away, turned and started walking again.  
  
"No- I guess not. Sorry for asking."  
  
She heard a sigh behind her. "Don't apologize. I have hardly given you reason to believe I would be incapable of harming them for their insubordination."  
  
"You weren't angry with them?"  
  
"I was infuriated! But being angry at that red beast for instance is like kicking one of his stones. He is simply not clever enough to waist my time with."  
  
Again Sarah halted. With her fists firmly planted in her sides, she faced Jareth.   
  
"Ludo is -not- stupid! He understands pain -and- he understands friendship and love!"  
  
"'Understands pain? I'll make sure to remember that."  
  
"No way I'm going to let you hurt him! He is loyal and kind and-"  
  
"Will you move on!"  
  
"But-"  
  
Jareth sighed openly now.  
  
"Sarah, I do despair sometimes- I have not hurt your friends and I will not. One of the tricks of the Labyrinth is that no one can hope to solve it without help."  
  
"Are you telling me they were in on everything!"  
  
"No they were not! The test whether or not the traveler can find confidants and aid is a rather useless one if my people are of a disposition to be helpful. So if anything they are taught -not- to be helpful."  
  
Sarah nodded, mindful of tile turning brownies, silly wise-men, biting fairies, and ill advising worms.  
  
"I see."  
  
"Oh good. Can we get a move on then."  
  
"Can't you just wish us where we need to be."  
  
"No, my charming little cynic, I cannot. Now please, our destination is not far off."  
  
Charming?  
  
"But-"  
  
"Sarah!" he warned.  
  
"Oh alright- If you don't want to talk to me, then don't."  
  
"This is not a matter of not wishing to speak to you or not. It is just a matter of not coming to a halt while we are."  
  
The girl and the King walked in silence for a while. Then Sarah spotted a lone figure, limping slightly, spraying the swarm of tiny fairies that roamed about the outer wall.  
  
His gruff voice drifted towards them in triumph.   
  
"One hundred and seventy three. Ha!"  
  
"Impressive," mumbled Jareth rather dryly and totally unimpressed. He looked at Toby again and his smile grew wide and warm in regarding the sleeping child. Sarah did not notice. She bolted down the slope and screamed.  
  
"Hoggle!"  
  
The Dwarf looked up at the yelling of his name in that all too familiar voice.  
  
"What the-"  
  
Jareth had warned Sarah the slope was steep here. Paying no heed to his warning, she stumbled, fell, rolled down a few feet and finally came to a stop at the bottom of the hill. Hoggle had run up to her, while Jareth made inhuman haste down. While Sarah was gathering her wits together, Fae and Dwarf asked in unison: "Are you alright?"  
  
The two glared at each other. Hoggle flinched while Jareth towered over the both of them. Oblivious to the sudden animosity, Sarah scrambled forwards and embraced Hoggle with enthusiasm.  
  
"Hoggle!" she yelled. Before he could return the embrace, Sarah turned away in disgust.   
  
"Aw- Hoggle!" Sarah waved at the suddenly putrid air and pinched her nose. Angrily, still on her knees, She turned to Jareth.  
  
"You said you did not harm them!"  
  
Jareth looked down at the defiant girl and answered in a neutral voice: "I never did."  
  
"He smells after the Bog!"  
  
"Oh that. I forgot."  
  
"Sarah! Girl what -is- you doing here ?"  
  
"Did he threw you into the Bog of eternal stench?"  
  
"Right after you left."  
  
Sarah glared at the calm King.  
  
"Needed you magic for something else hm?"  
  
"Are you quite comfortable down there?"  
  
Sarah scrambled to her feet, still mad at the King.  
  
"Christ Jareth, how can he ever be in the neighborhood of anyone with that stench about!"  
  
"You could ask me!" said Hoggle, not liking to be talked about as if he were not there.  
  
"I'm sorry Hoggle- Oh how have you been al this time? I called and called for you-"  
  
"We weren't able te gets te you."  
  
"All of them!" Sarah exploded.  
  
"Oh I might as well! There will be no appeasing you otherwise. Hold Toby a moment, will you."  
  
Jareth gave the little boy to Sarah, planted his cane firmly into the reddish dirt and concentrated on conjuring up four pristine crystal spheres. He turned and twirled them in his right hand and when ready, took them with his left and blew them away like soap bubbles. One of the bubbles exploded above Hoggle. As the bubble burst and Hoggle tried to duck, a spray of silver glitter fell on the Dwarf. Immediately the stench of the Bog had disappeared.  
  
"Four?"  
  
"Naturally."  
  
"Ambrosias too!"  
  
The King held out his arms to retrieve Toby. While Sarah returned the boy, she could not help but shiver. The merry glint in Jareth's eyes had disappeared and they looked at her as cold as ever from behind a totally blank expression.  
  
Hoggle stared dumbstruck at the King. Never before had Jareth released anyone from one of his curses, let alone from the Bog of Eternal Stench. And never in his whole life had he seen the Goblin King taking orders from anybody.  
  
"But Sarah- what is you doing here!"  
  
Sarah embraced the Dwarf again, this time without turning. And he shyly hugged her back. Jareth had turned away and regarded a nearby fairy with some interest. He shooed it away when it tried to sit on Toby's face.  
  
"Oh Hoggle, I missed you and the others so much."  
  
"We tried." Hoggle glared past Sarah at the back of the King. "But why are the two of you over here? Did he steal the kid again?"  
  
"No- I wished him here. And followed but I am out of time already. Don't look like that. It's a long story and he's doing me a huge favor, really."  
  
"You stuck for life 'ere an' you call it a favor! Aw he done you in real good hasn't he!"  
  
Jareth lost patience with the conversation.  
  
"Sarah." He called to take her. But the girl looked so lost upon his command, that he changed his mind.  
  
"Here." He said, throwing the girl a crystal. "I am going ahead. You stay here until you have finished with Hagwarth. Then whish yourself at the castle and you will be there."  
  
"Hoggle," muttered the Dwarf under his breath.  
  
Sarah caught the bulb and smiled. "No clicking my heels or anything?"  
  
"Glad to see you already regard it as 'home'."  
  
Sarah paled. "You said you were going to take us to the village tomorrow."  
  
"I said I would -show- you."  
  
"You are going to separate us."  
  
Jareth only lifted his brow.  
  
"What use am I to you! Toby needs me! You tricked me!"  
  
"I will see you shortly, my Sarah.", Jareth told her, while evaporating into thin air taking Toby with him.  
  
Hoggle regarded the fuming girls sideways.  
  
"Ye know what, I think you haves a talent for trouble girl."  
  
"There he goes again calling me that."  
  
"What?"  
  
"His Sarah."  
  
"Trouble. Definitely."  
  
  
  
  



	2. 

Disclaimer: no rights what so ever to anything Labyrinth, except the most important ones, to admire, be inspired by, and to dream.  
  
The lullaby verse is from the song "River Lullaby" from the movie soundtrack "The Prince of Egypt", as performed by Amy Grant, Produced by Michael Omartian, A&M Records Inc.  
Go buy/rent the movie and/or the soundtrack. They are both wonderful.  
  
The second song I believe is named "Putting Out the Fire With Gasoline" from the movie soundtrack "Cat People", music by Mr. Giorgio Moroder, words and performed by Mr. David Bowie. The arrangement of the verses is -not- the original one, I have toyed around with it a little for the sake of the story.  
I do not know the film, yet.  
  
No copyright infringement intended, just being an inspired fan here.  
  
I have no money, please don't sue.  
  
PG-13.  
  
  
  
The Lonely and the Lost  
  
Chapter II: The Ageless Heart  
  
  
Karen had finally come for Toby's things. And Linda for some of Sarah's. Jewelry belonging to other side of the family exchanged hands, together with some photographs, toys with embedded memories and silence.  
  
Divorce papers came and were easily signed. Alimony agreed upon, the other half of the house sold back to the father.  
  
Charges were never made, as the sad notion to part as quickly as possible had prevailed on all sides. Some would have named those unmade accusations only spiteful, the sane ones would have called them just. But wherein does lie sanity? In punishment, in letting go? Where some have the admirable strength to stand up and accuse, both Linda and Karen were beaten. Not only by fear of the man, but mostly by grief over the loss of daughter and son.  
  
Had the women been able to unite, they might have found what it would have taken to stand tall. Yet friendship had always been a far cry between them, and any possible relationship became nonexistent after the few necessary discussions when there was hope still to retrieve the runaways. Karen told Linda in no uncertain terms she was a hypocrite to mourn the daughter she had left behind years ago. Linda retorted with calling Karen a cowardly fool.   
  
And that was the end of that. Linda's theatre star rose to new highs since she had become brilliant in portraying the tragedies of life, maintaining to the world her inspiration came from having to deal with so many herself. Karen started over with a good man with two sons of his own. Later on she brought a girl-child into the marriage. This time, it went well. Karen never cried over Toby. And she never parted with the locket keeping his photograph safe.   
  
Robert cared no longer his house was too large for one man. He knew it held a secret and it obsessed him. It lay somewhere in the attic, the cellar or Sarah's room. It had to be. Any toy was scrutinized and obsessed over, but he saw nothing of value in a music box playing Greensleeves or an old teddy named Lancelot  
  
With interest, hope, kindness and ultimately satisfaction the employer saw Robert loosing his love for liqueur, and picking up the pace of the job again. There were long hours of efficiency and eventually the deserved promotions. Few saw the truth of loneliness pored into business contacts.   
  
But the weekends, especially the Sundays, where holy. That was the time Robert spent dissecting old stuffed animals, reading children's books cover to cover and engaging into the quest-for-meaning in a teenagers diary.  
  
Sarah had started her diary at age nine, when her father had given the girl her first for Christmas. It was the pink one with the golden Bambi on the cover. It was the book that told the father of a fairytale mother who lived far away, doing wondrous things. It was the book that scolded her teacher and adored some silly boy.  
  
The Olivia Newton John of the Xanadu movie was Sarah's hero, for the woman was beautiful to the girl. She could sing and dance, dress like a fairytale and fade through a wall to enter another world. And to top is off she was loved by a romantic painter.  
  
Little Sarah longed for this world beyond. To become an Alice and remain in Wonderland, where Prince Charming would sweep her off her feet, and she could live happily ever after. If only to escape her new stepmother and her changing father.  
  
The girl had drawn a multitude of wonderful pictures of unicorns and elves and mermaids. Later on she had bought 'serious' books about the fairy folk. How one could earn their friendship by ending their unfinished songs for them. How one could be tricked by them if the unexpecting mortal ate their food or became entangled in one of their dark dances around the fairy ring of poisonous toadstools.  
  
How time traveled a different pace in this far away place as compared to the earth.  
  
It took Robert Two years to understand the meaning of the much-thumbed edition of the little red book with the golden lettering on the cover. The one named Labyrinth.   
  
On television the Berlin wall crumbled under the onslaught of young people freeing themselves of the solid barriers of the past. Book in one hand, remote in the other, Robert blanked out his future by turning of the news and focussing on the old. It all started to click together where booklet and diary aligned.  
  
Silly insane Sarah had started to believe in her fantasy travels to the land beyond, the Underground. Plain as day it laid before him. In her diary, Sarah described her imaginary sojourn and Toby's rescue. Page after page her fascination with the dark legend of this Goblin King grew- until she stopped writing. The evening she disappeared.   
  
Silly Sarah had gone to search for a dream, and had probably killed both herself and her brother in the process.  
  
Robert refused to believe. The portrait Sarah had drawn of the King was quite wonderful and very detailed. Almost taken from a photograph in its perfection. It had to be somebody the girl had known in real life. It had to be someone he could find!  
  
  
  
"How could I -ever- have trusted myself to him!"  
  
Sarah's knees buckled and she sat down heavily on the rust colored sand. Hoggle patted her shoulder.  
  
"Tell me about it. Cause I ain't gonna say nothing about it. Not that it seems you've been very smart 'n all..."  
  
Sarah smiled faintly. "I'm so sorry he threw you all into the Bog."  
  
Hoggle shrugged and waved the notion away.  
  
"Aw- Never you mind. I shoulds have know he would react like that."  
  
"And forget all about it, I suppose-"  
  
"Jareth -is- king. The damn thing is, he has more to do than take note of us four."  
  
"Where are the others?"  
  
"For as far as I knows, that crazy knight an' his dog camp near the Bog itself. The stench never seemed to bother them none. But I thinks we have to go and tell them they can come out now."  
  
"And Ludo?"  
  
"He's with the Fireys. Those critters stink so much of sulfur already, they never minded him much."  
  
"And you?"  
  
"Enough about us! An' don't you starts distracting me again now, you hear little missy?"  
  
Sarah smiled sadly at the dwarf.  
  
"No fooling you, is there?" Then her voice almost broke. Sarah pulled up her legs, crossed them at the ankles, arms around the knees and rested her head on her knees. Her dark locks cascaded over her shoulders and face like a hiding curtain. But the voice was steady.  
  
"What kind of children does the Goblin King take, Hoggle."  
  
He indulged her, but was impatient.  
  
"The ones wished away. The unwanted ones."  
  
"Toby became an unwanted child, Hoggle. So I wished him away."  
  
"But you loves him!"  
  
Sad green eyes met his inquisitive open blue ones.  
  
"My father stopped caring. He used Toby. He used Toby to make my stepmother and me do whatever he wanted. He hit Toby and he kicked Toby whenever we didn't do what he wanted. And when my stepmother disobeyed him he started to hit her too. She should have protected Toby, but could not or did not and even put out her cigarettes on his arms because my father told her so."   
  
Sara swallowed hard.  
  
"Just your average totally dysfunctional family."  
  
"Aw girl." Hoggle sat down next to Sarah, took her hand and squeezed it encouragingly.  
  
"I defended Toby 'cause there was no one else. But I could not 'cause daddy started to hit me too. And then I thought- you know. When they were fighting again about something trivial I went to Toby and I thought about Jareth and his Goblins. And how Toby never would have been hurt so badly if only he had stayed here, in the Underground. Those Goblins really are funny things. They are mean and childish, but they also seem to laugh a lot."  
  
Sarah was fighting back tears again. She would not break down- not ever. Not with her friends and certainly not where the Goblin King could see her. For watching her was what he did, she was sure of it.  
  
"I haven't seen Toby laugh or even smile in months! All he does is cry. But he has learned he gets beaten when he does so out loud. He's two years old, but he isn't talking. He doesn't try to walk. He just sits around or lies in his bed trying to make himself small. Like a wounded animal. So I thought- Well, as a Goblin he might not become some intellectual genius, or even a very kind person. But he would have had a family that accepted him. And he would have had fun."  
  
"So you wished him away."  
  
Sarah smiled sadly in acknowledgement.  
  
"You should have seen Jareth when he came for Toby. All regal and threatening and all that. And then I just shoved Toby into his arms and told him, -told him-, to get the hell out of the house! He really thought I had gone mad or something. His face was priceless."  
  
"You have a way of pushing him around."  
  
"No I don't." Sarah chuckled. "Somehow I don't think I have power over him."  
  
Hoggle's chiseled face cracked into a smile.  
  
"Think again. You called, he came. You asked him to take away the stench of the bog of me, he did. I thinks you have a great deal of power over him."  
  
"But how? I'm nothing but plain little old Sarah."  
  
Hoggle sat back, shook his head and said in a stern voice: "If thats what you thinks, thats what you'll be. But I sees the only human who ever could beat Jareth at his own game. I sees a lovely girl who got the attention of the King himself. I sees a girl who loves her brother so much she is willing to let go of him forever. And there's nothing plain about that! So now how did you yourself ended up here?"  
  
Sarah shrugged shyly. She heard Hoggle's praise but could hardly relate to it. Too many times her confidence had been crushed. It would take her a while to find herself again.  
  
"Jareth came back for me. He promised me I would never again have anything to do with my parents if I came to the Underground with him. He promised me my dreams again. I thought that meant that Toby and I would be together and safe."  
  
"I felt the clock spinning forward. So he did rearrange time for you again, now didn't he. I've never saw him do that for anybody else either."  
  
"Oh stop it Hoggle- you make it sound as if I am someone special to him."  
  
Hoggle scowled at Sarah. "Are you blind girl! You -are- special to him. Believe it or not, he's soft towards you. And if you make use of that, you could make life a lot easier for a lot of people. Like Didymus and Ludo and me!"  
  
"I might have wished that were true, a while ago. But right now I only wish to be with Toby."  
  
"You don't know yourself al that real well now, do you."  
  
"Now what is that supposed to mean!"  
  
"Go to him, Sarah. Go to the King and find out what he wants from you, before you make any more wishes. You're one of us now, and that means you'll be staying for a long time. Don't be so quick in thinking something is this or that."  
  
"Because nothing here is what it seems?"  
  
"Well, I ams your friend and that is exactly as it seems. So if you'll ever need me-"  
  
"I don't think Jareth will stop us from seeing each other again."  
  
Hoggle shook his head and smiled.   
  
"So, Hoggle, what are you going to do now?"  
  
"Find the others. Ludo will have smelled at least he stinks no more. I bet he's gone to Didymus already to tell him. But I don't thinks he can. So I'll be joining them and tell them about you and being here an' all."  
  
"Thanks Hoggle. I wish I could come with you, but our 'lord-and-master' wanted me to go straight 'home'. So I think it's best I'll be going."  
  
Hoggle and Sarah embraced again, stood and tried to remove the dust from their clothing. It didn't work that well for Sarah, with her falling over her own feet in her haste to meet Hoggle and all that. But of late she had done worse things than facing a King in dirty clothes. She would not let a small thing like pride stand in her way to be with her brother, now would she.  
  
Sarah held Jareth's crystal in front of her, waved Hoggle goodbye and said her right words.  
  
"I wish to be in the Castle beyond the Goblin City, near my brother Toby. Right now."  
  
The world vanished.  
  
  
She found herself back in a room best described as a nursery, Goblin style. It was a square room with a large gothic stained glass window. The color of the glass went from bright yellow to peach orange, making for a warm cozy light in the room, if fractured. There was a huge fireplace well closed off by a black cast iron fender, depicting dancing Fireys. An enormous white bear rug lay in front of it. Above the mantelpiece hung a painting of a forest and brightly colored playing and dancing elves.   
  
The walls of the room were erected in the same gray stone as the rest of the castle, but they seemed clean and polished. Most of the cold floor tiles were covered with all sorts of animal rugs and the floor lay strew with an assortment of stuffed animals (unicorns, a small Ludo, dragons and such), wooden Goblin dummies and brightly colored blocks without any straight angle. In a corner stood a tall oak linen-cupboard covered with carvings of vines and inlaid with mother of pearl and opal indicating grapes, and a table where one could change diapers and such. In a corner stood a small wooden bed; above it hung a music-box mobile with tiny black leather bats and silver owls. Beneath the bed she spotted a ceramic pot in the form of a Goblin's head.  
  
Next to the window in a rocking chair sat Jareth, Toby in his lap and firmly supported in the Kings arms. The boy was wide awake and totally unafraid of the stranger, who teasingly held out an already half eaten biscuit to the boy. Toby's blue eyes shone brightly, but he had yet to smile at the kind man who was feeding him cookies and was humming a gentle song to him. Jareth had changed his attire again to the outfit Sarah had seen him wearing when she came to the Underground before. White ruffled shirt, golden waistcoat, gray tights and brownish boots. His hands were ungloved for a change and his wispy main seemed more ginger than blond in the orange light of the room. There was a certain melancholy in his posture Sarah could not fathom.  
  
It was a peaceful picture so at odds with what Sarah had come to expect of the King, she simply froze at a total loss for words.  
  
Both Jareth and Toby looked up at her sudden entrance. Toby reached for Sarah and Jareth stood, crossed the room and gave her the child. Sarah rocked the little boy gently. Apart from some crumbs on his front and in the corners of his mouth, he looked clean in his new dark blue pajamas and he smelled after soap and roses. In her absence, the boy had been well cared for. She cuddled him. With the tilt of his head Jareth indicated the bed.  
  
"He has to brush his teeth." Sarah muttered. Jareth waved his hand and the cookie-crumbs disappeared. Sarah was sure the King had taken care of any other of Toby's needs the same instance. She laid him down in the soft bed, covered him and kissed his forehead. Jareth pulled a string dangling from the bat-owl mobile and a soft tinkling song drifted through the room. Jareth sang with the lullaby, it was the same gentle tune he had been humming before.  
  
"Hush now, my baby  
"Be still love, don't cry  
"Sleep like you're rocked by the stream  
"Sleep and remember this river lullaby  
"And I'll be with you when you dream  
"I'll be with you when you dream  
  
Toby closed his eyes and drifted away peacefully without Jareth having to use his sorcery this time- Except for that sweet voice carrying a magic all of its own. Sarah shivered, trying not to yawn or to fall under its spell. Jareth did not seem to notice. He stared down at the boy a moment longer and again without word indicated Sarah to leave the room through the heavy oak half round door. It swung on its hinges without making a sound. Jareth wore a pensive and very worried expression on his face while they left. There were two Goblin guards, unarmed, playing checkers at a table near the door. They had to be some of the more intelligent ones since they had begun to grasp the concept of checkers in the first place. It did not matter they both played black and white.  
  
"Warn me if the boy does so much as squeal, you understand?"  
  
The pair nodded. Jareth indicated Sarah to follow him.   
  
"Stay close, as everything Underground my castle is a maze of hallways to the untrained eye."  
  
"You really enjoy giving orders, don't you?" Sarah mumbled under her breath. But Jareths keen hearing was not of Sarahs world.   
  
"It is a habit one does pick up in my position." he answered lightheartedly.  
  
Sarah blushed, hoping he did not have the proverbial eyes in the back of his head. But she suspected he realized her discomfort anyway.   
  
In stark contrast to the bright room the pair just left, the corridors of the castle were sparsely lit by torches, held by hand-shaped torch-barers. To her amazement some of them moved and a few empty ones tapped the wall as if bored with inactivity.  
  
"Don't mind them, they won't hurt you."  
  
"Helping hands?"  
  
"A variety of, yes."  
  
"It's a nice room you gave Toby."  
  
Jareth looked at her over his shoulder.  
  
"It was my own."  
  
"You were ever that small?"  
  
"Amazing, isn't it."  
  
The passages were dark and gray and dizzying to Sarah, frequently crossed by others and counting either many doors, ore none. She was forced to follow Jareth around like a little lost puppy and felt like one. But their walk was quite short, in comparison.  
  
They halted at a tall beautifully carved door set in an elegant stone arch. Two almost human Goblin knights jumped to attention when the King neared. Jareth ignored them, held the door open for Sarah and she stepped inside.  
  
It had to be the first of Jareth's private rooms. Spacious, rich and a mess. Not the filthy kind of mess the Goblin's made, but the kind of mess a learned mage might keep around for reference. There were books and scrolls everywhere. At the mahogany desk, naturally, but also at the comfortable couch before the fireplace, piled up on the floor, on a cupboard next to a bird skeleton, on the chair next to the couch, on top of another closet and absolutely crammed in to the bookcases aligning most of the walls. Quills and an inkwell, maps, chemicals, some boiling in a corner, a globe of the earth, a black globe with golden dots depicting the stars as seen from earth. A flat "globe" depicting the underground. Clocks in all varieties everywhere. Timepieces all striking a different hour, some twelve, some up to seventeen. At the other side of the room large glass doors opened to a balcony and Sarah could see the sun setting over the Labyrinth.  
  
Jareth stared at the couch, chair and coffee-table in front of the hearth a moment, snapped a crystal in existence and allowed it to explode above the furniture. The books and scrolls and other assorted materials disappeared to be replace by inviting cushions on the couch and sandwiches and drinks on the table.  
  
"Please my dear, do sit down. You must be quite weary by now."  
  
Sarah nodded and sat on the couch. To her surprise the King handed her a plate with two sandwiches and gave her a choice between wine, water and milk.   
  
"No peaches?" Sarah asked hesitantly.  
  
The king smiled mildly.   
  
"Some pears, if you like them."  
  
Well, she had to trust the food around her sometime. So Sarah bit the bread and asked for the milk.  
  
"Thanks- cozy place you've got here."  
  
"My inner sanctum, really. Kick off your shoes and make yourself comfortable. You've had quite a day."  
  
She did and curled up on the couch. Jareth did not touch the food, but he did poor himself some of the red wine and seemed to relax a little. He sat down in the large chair in a somewhat less than royal way, feet lazily in front of him, cradling his glass near his belly, eyelids almost closed. Had he forgotten Sarah was there? Or did he just trust her so much he could let some of his guard down? Or was it just the fact that the King was home?  
  
"Did you really read all this?"  
  
He shrugged. "Half of it I wrote myself."  
  
"Bit much for a diary."  
  
"Depends on how long one has -lived-, my dear."  
  
"That's a joke, right?"  
  
Jareth merely arched his brow.  
  
"I have arranged some rooms for you a little down this hallway. You should be quite comfortable there. I suggest you retire right after your little snack. On your former timetable it is long passed the midnight hour and you must be tired."  
  
"Thank you."  
  
Jareth smiled faintly. But the worried expression never left his eyes.  
  
"Toby does not speak much, does he?"  
  
Sarah shook her head. "He has been made afraid to. He doesn't walk either."  
  
"So he is severely stunted in his development. That is not something I can simply wave away or heal with my magic, Sarah."  
  
"You have given him peace if only for one night. I am grateful. But please- don't separate us. He needs me!"  
  
Jareth nodded slowly and clearly against his will admitted it.  
  
"I know. I have seen it in the way he reaches for you- You are the one stable and trusted thing he still has. Sarah, there are two in the artisans village who will be Toby's parents now. You cannot help him regain his mental heath nor steer him toward a normal development. They can."  
  
Sarah stared at the floor.  
  
"Again I am grateful. You seem to care about him, don't you?"  
  
"Look at me, Sarah."  
  
Sarah made contact with the Kings icy stare. Jareth sat straight, making a throne out of his seat simply by attitude.  
  
"I blame myself a great deal for what happened to the both of you, my dear."  
  
"That is ridiculous- you had nothing to do with all that. Besides it was after I came here in the first place."  
  
"And if I had not allowed you to leave, all your pains would have been naught."  
  
"You never allowed us to leave, I won, remember. And Toby would be a Goblin and I would have been home explaining it all."  
  
Jareth chuckled. "Oh I remember alright. But who again sent you Hoggle to get you out of that oubliette? Who again placed in your way only tests you -could- resolve if you did try your best?"  
  
"You sent the cleaners after me, who might have killed me! You nearly threw me into the bog of stench. We almost died in that stupid battle you set up and you tried to make me sell Toby for a dream!"  
  
"Might. Nearly. Almost- don't you detect a theme here, my dear?"  
  
"You are impossible!"  
  
"I was very generous with you."  
  
"Well I'm sure I don't know about back then- but I do realize you are very generous right now. And I haven't even properly thanked you- I'm sorry."  
  
"As you should be."  
  
"Are you enjoying this?"  
  
Jareth allowed himself a wide unpleasant and wolfish grin.  
  
"Immensely!"  
  
"Oh how gallant!"  
  
"My apologies for not being your Prince Charming, my dear."  
  
"Well you tried."  
  
They both remembered a certain masked ball and the aforementioned peach. Sarah sat a little more straight for her next quip.   
  
"And failed."  
  
Something dark melted the Kings icy stare- it was that same something Sarah had felt from him when she silenced him to make him understand she would come with him. It frightened her, made clear to her he wanted something from her- Her, not Toby.  
  
He rose quickly and went to the balcony to stare out into the night.  
  
"You are a foolish -child- Sarah."  
  
She followed swiftly but softly on her stockinged feet, barely avoiding throwing over some pile of knowledge.  
  
"Why do you wish to keep me here, locked away in your castle if I am such a child!"   
  
A dangerous triumph to claim and an even more dangerous course to sail. Sarah was not totally naive. But apparently in movement Jareth had found back the control that had momentarily slipped him.   
  
"Locked away? Nonsense girl. I thought you might have a use in the kitchens."  
  
"What!"  
  
"But as is, I might as well send you with the boy for a few years. If you grow up a bit, you might even acquire some manners more suitable to the courts."  
  
"You- you wanted me to- Manners to suit a court of -Gobelins-!"  
  
Jareth nodded regally.  
  
Suddenly it struck Sarah. She had won, again. Jareth would allow her to go with Toby to live with him and have a new family. As Hoggle already indicated, in spite of their banter Jareth had not been able to refuse Sarah her request, not in the end.  
  
Sarah followed the Kings gaze into the darkness. Stars shone brightly over the wasteland in front of the castle.  
  
"Wasn't that a junkyard?"  
  
"There is a reason the cleaners are called that way."  
  
"What about that junkyard couple?"  
  
"They are doing quite nicely in the city with their second-hand shop. Why do you ask?"  
  
"It's nothing really. I just guess things change, even here."  
  
"Everything has to change, it's the flow of life."  
  
Sarah nodded.  
  
"But you are immortal, aren't you?"  
  
"Nearly. Fae do age. Differently than most of your kind, but we do."  
  
Sara looked up at the King, while he gazed down at her.   
  
"Most of my kind?"  
  
Jareth smiled again. He lazily leant on the parapet on his elbows, shifting in a position that brought him at eye level with Sarah.  
  
"So many questions for such a little girl."  
  
"So I am curious."  
  
"That you are, my little cat, that you are."  
  
Sarah mimicked the stance.  
  
"That sounds like a warning."  
  
Jareth caught a dark stray lock and tried to tuck it behind Sarahs ear, but a little irritated she shook free and stepped back. The beginning of a song escaped Jareth's lips, reciting it like a poem.  
  
"See these eyes so green  
"I can stare for a thousand years  
"Colder than the moon  
  
The he caught himself and straightened.  
  
"Tomorrow will be a very exiting day for you and your brother both, my dear- and in some ways not a very easy one. I suggest you retire."  
  
Sarah swallowed and nodded. She turned and went back in, collected her shoes, and went to the door. Suddenly she realized what she was doing- walking on stockinged feet only through the private chambers of a King. When she turned to the balcony, she saw not him but a white barn owl sitting on the parapet, staring at her. Clearly having been dismissed she opened the door and slipped through. Sarah had totally forgotten about the large Goblins guarding Jareths door and felt more than a little embarrassed walking beside one with her shoes in her hand towards another door to the probably lovely room Jareth had made somebody prepare for her.  
  
Such a little girl still, at sixteen, as she avoided making an even greater chaos of his study by staying clear of the heaps of books. Such a precious little thing, adorable as she slipped through the door to her own room. So quiet she had passed. So calmly she had accepted the transition from her world to his. He had been right to reintroduce her to the dwarf- Sarah had gotten of her chest some of the grief that had followed her into the Underground by opening up to Hedgeworth. A first step on her way to heal. Pity he could not guide her on this road himself, he understood now she would not allow him. Talk to him, even tease him a little- that she dared and that she would. He would miss her, even if she were so close by. Who else in the Underground would dare to -tease- him this openly?   
  
The cool breeze under his wings felt so good, as he glided it toward the village of the artisans, where among it's people the mother and father of seven lived. With their youngest of one and eldest of eighteen, open loving hearts and compassionate minds, this family was perfect to receive yet two other additions to their household. It was the right choice, the right thing to do, he convinced himself, while the verses of the song that had almost slipped him kept replaying in his mind.  
  
See these eyes so green  
I can stare for a thousand years  
Colder than the moon  
It's been so long  
  
Heal my blood enraged  
It's just the fear of loosing you  
Don't you know my name?  
Well you've been so long  
  
See these tears so blue  
An ageless heart that can never mend  
These tears can never dry  
Judgement made that can never bend  
  
See these eyes so green   
I can stare for a thousand years  
Just be still with me  
You would not believe what I've been through  
  
You've been so long  
And it's been so long  



	3. Songs Of Misery And Joy

Disclaimer: no rights what so ever to anything Labyrinth, except the most important ones, to admire it, be inspired by, and to dream about.  
  
There are three songs used in this chapter. The first one is more like a poem I wrote myself. The second is the lovely and endearing 1971 song 'Kooks' David Bowie wrote a few days after the birth of his son. The song is a wonderful welcome to a babe. The tenderness of it utterly enchanted me.  
  
Last but not least Sarah 'sings' Enya's song from The Memory Of Trees album 'On My Way Home'.   
  
If you don't know the songs I mentioned, for your own enjoyment -try- to get hold of them.   
  
My apologies if I seem somewhat pushy with my musical tastes towards you all. It's just my enthusiasm running away with me.  
  
I would like to thank all of you dear hearts who were kind enough to comment on my story and who kept pushing me for the next chapter. Without your support, it would not have been.  
  
So again thank you.  
  
This chapter's rating is PG-13 for swearing and references to violence.  
  
And yes. I -will- be getting on with the story already. Right now!  
  
Ramowen  
  
  
  
  
  
The Lonely and the Lost  
  
Chapter III: Songs of Misery and Joy  
  
Green rain over Baghdad, somehow no more dangerous than a computerized game when filmed with night-vision. Unclear images showed what had been coming for a while now, a war in the gulf.   
  
Like nothing new, this war held no interest for the man staring at the television. But Robert Williams had learned he could not afford to lose the now out of sight, for it would mean the loss of those around him. The colleagues and their small talk, the relations and their lunches. The neighbors and the relatives. Keeping them at distance by means of no contact had the adverse effect. Thus it worked between responsible and curious humans who were in a habit of looking after each other.   
  
However, when the mask of normality was firmly in place, one could dance with the devil in one's own basement and nobody would be the wiser.  
  
The devil, the dancer, the thief.  
  
The Goblin King.  
  
The basement of Robert's house had become his secret place. Firstly it had been cleaned out, than cleaned up. The walls plastered white, cables laid, the most modern of computers installed. And o what a wonderful world the Internet was. The green cursor danced over the screen and digit by digit, zero one, one zero, information from all around the globe revealed itself. Libraries filled with ancient legends of Ireland and the long lost past and the war between the Tuatha De Danann and the Fomorians. The little people, giants, unicorns- at one time Robert even found himself making a file about Smurfs.  
  
He needed a break. Badly.  
  
So the old obsession took a new route. A large map of the surrounding area now donned the wall. Green pins pinpointed homes from which people, both young and old, had disappeared over the last fifty years. Red pins indicated murder sites. A thin black thread connected a disappearance and a site. Those where of less interest to the father.  
  
Pictures of milk-carton children appeared. More and more and more, nation wide. But only those of children who had gone missing from their own homes. Only infants and teenage girls. A cabinet filled itself with neatly stacked files. Hundreds of hours of work. Not a clue what so ever.  
  
One afternoon Robert took down the swing from the tree in the backyard. Reasoning logically there was no hope left he would ever see his son playing with the damned thing. So Robert pulled it down and put it away.   
  
But the gut feeling still told the man quite a different story. Sarah lived. Toby had to be somewhere he could be found. And damn all the pixies.  
  
Inside Sarah's little red book with the golden title, Robert had found the address of the bookshop with the second hand books were Sarah had bought it. The student behind the counter could tell him not a thing. The references to the writer proofed a dead end.  
  
Sometimes Robert felt watched, scrutinized. Haunted. As if someone was toying with him. Guiding him into a maze of questions without answer. Trapping him inside his own obsession to find his children. Enticing him with bits of information that could occupy him for months to ultimately be led no-where. Seducing him into the firm belief there was such a thing as a mythical land called The Underground, with its Labyrinth and magic. Forever out of the adults reach.  
  
Robert made some friends among divorced men with children. Men who still sought the company of women with hopes of courtship. Foolish men who were easily manipulated into allowing their children into 'uncle' Roberts care for one Saturday evening. They stayed at Robert's home, ate his candy and played with Sarah's old board games. They went early to bed without protest, slept in the spare bedroom and woke up in the morning, with, to their surprise, their windows wide-open. And kind Uncle Robert with bags under his eyes, looking terrible. As if he had not slept all night.  
  
Robert drugged the children, taking care the only effect they would undergo was a good nights sleep. Then he wished them away. Waited all night for some miracle that never happened.  
  
One anger and grief inspired day he went dangerously overboard and in the mall kidnapped an infant out of it's buggy. Two days later he left the child unharmed in a bag near a gas station.   
He came and went unnoticed.   
  
Even with this babe, the miracle had not happened. When morning came and Robert found himself capable of wringing the innocent's neck because of it, he finally realized he was sinking into insanity.  
  
He started to see owls by daylight.   
  
Robert learned how to handle a gun and rifles and went hunting. Once, alone in the woods, he took a point blank shot at an almost white barnyard owl he found dozing in the loft of an abandoned shed. There was not even a feather of the animal to be found- but the laughter which might have been only the owls shriek, kept ringing in his ears for hours and nearly drove him to putting his rifle into his own mouth and pulling the trigger.  
  
He never went hunting alone again, but in company became quite the woodsman. Robert never saw the owl again.  
  
He started drinking again.  
  
His employer gave Robert the phone number of a self-help group of parents of missing children. Robert promised to go, dreading it. How could these people help him? What could he tell them?   
  
'Hi, I'm Robert (Hi Robert!) My two children have been kidnapped by the Goblin King and now he's slowly driving me insane. Did you know he is an owl sometimes?'  
  
Robert was forced to listen to the stories of people whose children had been found back molested and killed in the most god-awful way. He listened to a loving father describing his runaway son, never to have been found back. He learned that sometimes knowing what tragedy has befallen a loved one is easier to bear than never learning their fate at all.  
  
He learned to regret a choice once made in his youth, when jealousy had overtaken him. A choice he could never ever rectify.   
  
He learned that many couples brake up after their tragic loss and how many others find great strength and new depths within their relationship. He found he could speak in mock love about Sarah and that the group saw right through him. He was invited to talk about his anger, vented some of it and found a kind of acceptance. In tears he spoke about his father and his own abuse as a child. In tears he spoke about the blows he had dealt his children and how sorry he was for all of it. Begging the Good Lord for another chance with his family.  
  
Some parents were terribly upset with him, some claimed understanding.   
  
He learned from the group that self-made poetry was a help to them to express themselves. Some had taken up drawing or painting. At home in his basement, Robert dusted of his old guitar and had a go at 'expressing himself'. He strummed the guitar, hummed a few bars and made up a tune with the words that came trough him. He sang them with tears in his eyes and a broken voice.  
  
  
  
"Years and years and years he told me  
"Son do grow up, don't be such a baby  
"And he held the reigns of my life  
"So tight and he would never, ever stop  
"He was the man in '45, love  
"The hero fighting for our lives, dove  
"A hardened man wasted without a chance  
"Upon the bloody beach of Second World War France  
  
"I was born in the first year he was out, defending us  
"But he never believed that I wore his bloody face  
"The twin of my grandpa, but when finally that became obvious  
"All the love between him and me had been long lost  
"And when he got no job but the dull one in the factory  
"He told my mother what a whore she was, could she not see  
"The respect he should be given by us, his family  
  
"He showed me his medals, and that was good-  
  
"When Joey's dad came home from the war he was a kinder man  
"Who had learned to be scared out of his scull, and then  
"Move on and forgive  
"Move on up and live  
"And be awakened by the nightmares screaming bloody murder  
  
"Not my dad  
"Not mine  
"No not mine  
  
"His belt a whip for the smallest thing  
"Every moment you dreaded, everything  
"When you went to school you went with the rule  
"You were happy  
"I hated little Joe and I hated his dad  
"And everybody thought his drowning was sad  
"And nobody knew where I had been  
"Or cared to ask me  
  
"I learned how much power there is in fear   
"And I learned it well, don't you fret my dear  
"I'll protect you all, I'll protect you good  
"For that is what a Father should  
  
"Years and years and much years later on  
"He died far away and all alone  
"With his bottles and his medals in a box  
"Wasted, in some home  
  
"When Joey's dad came home from the war he was a kinder man  
"Who had learned to be scared out of his scull, and then  
"Move on and forgive  
"Move on up and live  
"And be awakened by the nightmares screaming bloody murder  
  
"Not my dad  
"Not mine  
"No not mine  
  
  
After listening to the result, Robert burned the tape of the song and sold the guitar. For the group he made a tender drawing of Sarah and Toby, flanked by some of Sarah's unicorns.  
It was surprisingly good and established the lie he really was remorseful and on his way in becoming caring.  
  
Remaining bottles were emptied in the sink, again.   
  
One evening a mother passed photographs around of her second family. She had brought a son to the marriage, he a daughter. An infant the beloved one of their new union.  
Five photographs. Three of the lost baby boy, stolen from his bed one night. Right out of their own home. Two snapshots of the whole family together, one 'before' and one a year 'after'.  
  
Robert nearly dropped the photographs when it was his turn to say 'oh' and 'ah'. The babe was just another normal infant, nothing special. The family pictures however, showed something quite interesting indeed.  
  
The intact family had been of mother and father, infant, a boy of about sixteen and a sullen freckled girl, just the right side of fourteen. The broken family showed the mother and father standing much closer, a young man already filling out his body quite nicely, holding his mother and smiling shyly. The girl stood in front of the father, his hands on her shoulders. Tall, with bright eyes knowing she was something special. From her neck dangled a lovely necklace with a pendant shaped like a silver owl in flight.  
  
Oozing charm Robert became a friend of the couple and the family. It was the year Toby would have been seven and Sarah twenty-one. But in the home of his new friends the talk was not about missing children. Robert played chess with the father, spoke about rugby with the son. Once, with tears in his eyes, he gave the now sixteen-year-old daughter the earrings he lied about to have bought for Sarah's seventeenth birthday. The girl accepted the silver with the same secret smile she always seemed to wear if people did something special for her. For she thought of herself as very special. The arrogant little bitch.  
  
The last time Robert saw the girl smile was when he unexpectedly picked her up from her school. The foolish girl trusted 'uncle' Robert and hopped in his car. Forgetting all she had learned from her parents, forgetting most molesters were very well known to their victims. Lucky for her Robert had no physical hurt in mind for the girl. While driving he gave her a brown paper bag and asked her to take a good look at it's content. When the girl found the little red book she nearly fainted. Robert asked her if he could take her to a small cafe where they could talk about it and she agreed numbly.  
  
The Bluebell Bar had not changed much over the years, it had only become more corny and somewhat abandoned. The same old movie stars donned the wall, but sometimes the music was updated to the 'pop' of Climie Fisher or the ballads of Spandau Ballet. Ashtrays had been removed in one corner, fruit-juice and salads had entered the menu as main course.   
Hidden in one of the boots, whispering behind her cold cup of coffee the girl told Robert how she had loathed being forced to take care of that brat of a baby brother of hers. Her new big brother and she took turns and he never seemed to mind, but she did. And then one day she had found a copy of the Labyrinth booklet in an old bookshop and she dreamed away. Wistfully she had called upon the fantasy King to take her brother.  
  
He had been no fantasy. In detail the girl described the coming of the King. How he had charmed her and frightened her and seduced her into submission. The girls eyes had this far away look as if describing her very first love, telling Robert about the King's fine features, elegant attire, even if ominous, and his moonlight blond silken locks. Robert showed the girl a copy of Sarah's drawing and the girl started crying. Begging Robert to be allowed to keep the flimsy paper. She told him the King had given her a crystal with a present inside. Told her it was a very special present for a very special girl, if only she could let go of the brat she had wished away. The choice was an easy one. The foolish child regarded her necklace as something of an engagement present and apparently wasted her youth waiting for him to come back for her.  
  
But when the truth of Sarah's disappearance sank in, the girl broke down and started to sob hysterically. For Sarah -had- walked the Labyrinth and -had- returned home with her brother. And -had- been taken away again.   
  
Robert reached out with his hand and patted the girl on her arm. Before she realized it, he had gotten hold of the owl-pendant and yanked the chain from her neck. The girl shrieked and grabbed for the precious trinket, but the man pushed her roughly back into her seat. Robert asked the girl if she had ever realized she had condemned her baby-brother to the miserable life of a Goblin. Her guilty expression assured Robert of her silence about their encounter.  
  
Proof. Solid proof. This girl and the pendant in his hand baring witness to the fact he had -not- lost his mind. That it was all true. Everything. More than Sarah's drawings or diary. More than the red book with the gold on the cover, it was proof!  
  
Robert left the self-help group and ditched his job. He sold his house and disappeared into obscurity. A small cheap flat with just enough room to house his updated computer, his files and a bed. Now he had certainty he needed the time. Time to find a way in.  
  
There -had- to be a way in!   
  
  
  
Jenny Christophersdaughter closed the old stable-door and walked through the garden to the house. She had taken care of the horses for the night and hurried home under the starry sky and a moon so bright it could be one of the Goblin King's crystals. The girl wore the same kind of gray pants and brown leather boots her dashing King usually dressed himself with. But her short sleeved green shirt was far more practical without those ruffles and her straight sheepskin body-warmer held no elegance at all. She could not use frivolities while working with the horses, nor missed them.   
  
Jenny was a pale skinned freckled honey-blond sixteen-year-old, the spitting image of her father. Eyes as blue as the sky on a hot summer's day, hair pulled back in a high ponytail, a whimsical nature and a kind heart.  
  
The flowers and herbs her mother grew here smelled heavenly, even if the blooms had closed for the night. She could see her mother through the open window, illuminated by the candlelight behind her. Holding her baby sister and rocking the infant gently to try to get her to sleep. It would not work, Jenny knew. The only thing that would get her baby-sister to doze off was if her father sang her to sleep. Every night he would take the old Aboveground guitar from the hooks in the wall and play the gentle songs he knew so well. In Aboveground Jenny's dad had wanted to become a singer. What he had become down here was the best silversmith of the Goblin King's artisan village. Or 'the Nugget' as most of the Underground folk insisted on calling it.  
  
Their house was small and low. Thick white plastered brick walls, dark brown thatched roof. The red painted frames of the windows with the cat dozing in the windowsill and the old vines growing all over the wall. The coziest room was the kitchen with the large table everybody used to sit around. The wood-stove and the hearth always giving off their steady warmth in winter and the larger windows in front when opened made the room cool in summer. Her father usually sat in front of those, with a book or his guitar.   
  
The front of the house was Father's workshop. Everybody had a tiny room in the attic directly under the roof. Most houses in the artisan's village were like this. Since some Goblin had planned the village's layout, there were no real streets. Only a somewhat ordered chaos of houses surrounded by random plots of land.  
  
The garden was such a plot. Vegetables were grown there, and those flowers. Father had a plan to grow grapes against the stable wall. They had four horses at the moment. Jenny's, Mathew's and two guests Jenny had been asked to train.  
  
The garden was not very wide, but rather deep and it would take a few minutes to cross. Jenny held her pace and smiled at the idyllic view of her mother and baby sister. She loved them both to bits. She loved all her brothers and sisters and her father to bits. And their neighbors and her eldest brother's elfin friends. It was a peaceful, loving community Jenny lived in. So fucking harmonious it was no wonder she used to ride her horse hard, until the excitement of the ride drove her boredom away. Jenny smiled at herself. She would not dare say such a word like 'fucking' out loud. It was a swearword her father had taken with him from the Aboveground. That other world where hardly anything had been harmonious.   
  
Once upon a time Jenny's father Christopher, had lived in a place called Ireland. He had been a member of a group called Protestants and had had the audacity to fall in love with Jenny's mother, Maude, a then seventeen-year-old Catholic. Jenny did not understand why there had been any strife at all between these groups, but they both were adamant the relationship between the two teenagers should end. Even when it was found out that Maude was with child.  
  
Soon after Maude's son was born, it became clear that her parents had given this child of sin up for adoption. Maude had run away from home to meet with Christopher, taking the infant with her. All young Christopher had been able to bring with him was his guitar. Life became extremely hard for the still unwed couple, lodging in a boardinghouse, very short on money and mainly unemployed. Maude found a waitress job in a pub. Sometimes Christopher could play there, but they had to take little Mathew with them for they could not afford a babysitter nor knew a friend to look after him. One night, Maude's father found the couple in that pub and caused a scene. The father was thrown out and Maude could go, fired. Taking the backdoor they fled. It rained no more, but thunder still hung in the air like the silence before the storm and the black wetted streets gleamed coldly beneath the streetlights. Walking those deserted streets of Belfast in the middle of that night, Christopher improvised a gentle song to encourage his girl. He swore he'd rather have the Hobgoblins take his child -right now- than see it taken and raised by strangers.  
  
And right on cue, a truly strange stranger had appeared in front of them. Dressed in black armor and dark velvet, a swirling cape dancing around him in a nonexistent breeze. Spiky hair with an odd silken quality, seemingly woven out of moonlight. Noble features, his eyes holding a hypnotic quality while deeply penetrating. Dust turned to silver sparks in his wake.  
  
He claimed to be the King of the Goblins and demanded their child now belonged to -him-.  
  
Christopher had taken a swing with his guitar and tried to knock the oddball against the ground. Laughing the creature disappeared in a tornado of sliver sparks, blinding the couple, the guitar passing right through air where it should have bruised flesh and bone. Maude screamed as she felt her child wrenched from her arms and when the couple could see again, they were elsewhere.   
  
Highly amused with Christopher's resistance the Goblin King had -somehow- transported them to the magical world Jenny knew as her only home. He had given the hapless youngsters thirteen hours to solve his Labyrinth and reclaim their son.  
  
Maude and Christopher lost the bet. Afterwards Maude begged not to be separated from her child. The Goblin King allowed the young family to stay intact on three conditions. They were never to return to the Aboveground, Christopher had to become a silversmith and teach both his infant and any future children the trade, and they had to accept they would have a long standing debt with the King. Basically agreeing to do any damn thing he asked of them.   
  
Maude and Christopher had no choice but to agree, otherwise their little Mathew might have ended up a Goblin. But the young couple quickly understood King Jareth had not condemned them to anything, quite the contrary. They now had their chance to get married and live together until the end of their days in a peace and tranquility they never would have experienced in their old lives. Disguised as threat, Jareth had given them happiness. Their gratefulness grew into loyalty and trust over the years. Jareth had commanded Christopher to teach his children his new profession, for which he proved to be extremely talented, but he did not -force- those children to follow in their fathers footsteps. Whatever they would do with their lives was their choice and not his business. And the 'debt' Maude and Christopher owned was hardly ever referred upon, although the King seemed to have a natural supernatural awareness for any masterly trinket Christopher made. Sometimes he would claim those before any other Fay could even see it. To Jenny the Fay behaved oftentimes not unlike a murder of magpies, the lot of them.   
  
Sudden movement caught the girl's eye and she swiftly turned to the side, to see a white barnyard owl gracefully land on the low wooden fence surrounding the garden. It cocked its head towards her, blinked its eyes and shrieked. The animal smirked at Jenny. There was only one kind of owl she knew off that could actually smirk at her. She turned towards the house again and started to yell, pleasantly surprised and exited.  
  
"Mum! Dad! Dad, come quickly!"  
  
Her father came to the window, his face open and questioning, her mother made some movement and put Cindy down who promptly started crying. Christopher looked annoyed over his shoulder and missed the obvious of the King shape-changing into his Fay form. Mathew came to the backdoor and stared at his younger sister.  
  
"What in the blazes-" Then he noticed the amused King nonchalantly strolling down the garden path.  
  
"Oh dear lord-"  
  
"-My- Lord is the correct phrase, boy."  
  
Jareth passed the two youngsters, winking mischievously at the immediately blushing Jenny and entered the house. Jenny in turn could not help the smirk on her own face. -Somebody- was in a good mood today. But the appearance of the King was quite odd really. The last items her father had been working on were some buckles and a simple candlestick.  
  
Jareth chuckled at all the surprised faces he saw round the table. Christopher's very blond mob of hair and Maude's curly chestnut had left them with a team of beautiful blond and redheaded children, all very freckled and amazingly alike their father in their features. Round faces, small noses and with those incredibly clear blue eyes. He ignored their gentle questioning faces and turned to the crying babe in her cot. Jareth conjured up a tiny crystal that flew from his hand and made little shiny pirouettes above the infant's face. Cindy stopped crying and tried to catch the little sphere, making bubbling almost laughing little noises.  
  
"There, there, little one- we cannot have you in a tiff while I am talking to your parents."  
  
Christopher neared the King and asked: "My Lord, to what do we owe the honor of your visit?"  
  
"You know, you might wish to learn that unruly lot," and the pointed at the children with his cane "to stand and greet their King when he pays you a visit. Or not to turn their backs on him."  
  
Jenny snickered. Jareth glanced over his shoulder at her and she made a mock curtsy. For a moment the King narrowed his eyes at her, even as he was smiling still. But it unnerved the girl and she suddenly understood Jareth's business with her family might be serious. She saw Mathew swallow hard. The King still had a claim on him, Jareth had never renounced it.  
  
"Christopher, Maude, a word with you please."  
  
The King tuned and left the house as quickly as he had entered. He walked to the back of the garden, not even looking if his subjects would follow him. Out of earshot of the children he turned and faced the humans. His face not grim, but very serious. Maude took Christopher's hand in hers and she shivered. Jareths gaze went over their shoulders to the house a moment, where young curly copper hared Mathew still stood in the doorstep. Subtly he shook his head, but it was enough for the couple. They would not lose their son today,  
  
"You two are very fond of children, are you not?"  
  
"Well my Lord, we have seven of them, you know." Maude and Christopher exchanged a happy glance and focussed rather starry-eyes on Jareth. After all, he had made the very being of their children possible.  
  
"How about nine."  
  
"What?"  
  
Jareth tapped his cane against his open palm, observing the two.  
  
Maude lay a hand on her belly and shivered- The King could not be serious. If babies came, they came. But Maude was not exactly planning on more children, and certainly not so soon after Cindy's birth.   
  
Christopher put a protective arm around his wife and looked rather perplexed and pained at the king. Jareth merely shook his head.  
  
"You two have parented your offspring well- they are growing up healthy and confident. I would like you to take upon yourself the duty of raising two children who have not been that fortunate, and who will bring some considerable changes into your household. Not to mention your lives."  
  
"Wished away ones?" Christopher asked.  
  
"One of them."  
  
"And the other lost and wanted to stay? Like we did?"  
  
Jareth smirked. "I would not say that." Then the King turned very serious. "The larger problem is with the boy. A two year old stunted and even somewhat retarded toddler, seriously mistreated by his natural parents." The unevenly focused eyes doubled their intensity with Jareth's next words while he looked straight at Christopher.  
  
"Especially by the father. He does not move, while he should be walking- I know he could when he was younger. He does not talk, does not even smile." Jareth's gaze swept over Maude now.  
  
"Think of your little Cindy not smiling."  
  
"Oh this is horrible."  
  
"Quite. And I need the two of you to take care of little Toby, as if he were your own. I'm sure with all your healthy little ones around he would learn to trust you two rather quickly."  
  
"My Lord-" Christopher was searching for words. "I'm not quite sure if things will work that way-"  
  
Jareth raised his brow and narrowed his gaze.  
  
"But for the boy's sake we'll try, won't we darling?" Christopher continued with some haste.  
  
"Oh that poor little boy! How could anybody do such a thing- How has he been hurt- When will we see him?"  
  
Jareth could not help but smile again at the woman's befuddled eagerness. Maude truly was a mother in the in the best and most beautiful sense of the word. She was raised like that and reveled in the role, so unlike her eldest daughter. Jareth did enjoy all the complications and differences in this family. He could never have hoped Maude and Christopher would turn out to be so endlessly amusing to him when he first met them in that gloomy wet and cold Belfast street.  
  
"Tomorrow, with his sister. She is a very spirited young lady who wished her brother away only to have him placed under my protection. She is very devoted to him." Jareth nodded towards the house. "Jenny is of an age with her."  
  
"What is he name?"  
  
For the slightest of moments Jareth seemed to hesitate.  
  
"Sarah."  
  
"Sarah- " repeated Christopher, looking from the corner of his eye at his wife, who gave him a similar meaningful glance.  
  
"Yes." answered Jareth curtly.  
  
"And Toby." Maude noted.  
  
"Quite." said Jareth in the same brusque tone.  
  
"Sarah and Toby." repeated Maude.  
  
Jareth's expression had turned a careful blank and his voice had grown cold enough to freeze the summer's night.  
  
"I take it than that you accept."  
  
The two humans lowered their gaze, but Jareth was unsure if this was a sign of respect or a vain effort not to laugh.  
  
"Yes, my Lord King."  
  
"Good. Expect us tomorrow, mid-morning."  
  
Unwilling to witness the couples reaction when gone, Jareth quickly stepped back, fell in on himself and his swirling cape and shape-changed once again. He circled the couple once and took to the sky, eerily shrieking.  
  
Christopher could not hold himself back. The moment Jareth was gone, he burst out laughing.  
  
"Oh my- Oh my dear- this is getting very interesting!"  
  
"Oh stop laughing, this is serious enough. That poor little boy."  
  
"Did you saw his face, love? He was embarrassed!"  
  
"Yes, but why?"  
  
"He lost to the girl!"  
  
"And got them back."  
  
That sobered the silversmith.  
  
"Yes, you are right. If anything, it seems that he has won from the girl after all. He should be gloating."  
  
"So why would he be embarrassed?"  
  
The silversmith smiled broadly. "Well, my love, it would seem we will have plenty of time to sort out that little puzzle. In the mean time, do you tell Jenny she will have to share her room for a while, or do I? With a virtual legend no less."  
  
"You tell her, my dear. You, will tell her."  
  
Arms around each other they walked back to the house.  
  
Fourteen-year-old Nan, curls of unruly copper tried to comfort little Cindy, who was again crying. When her parent's entered the house, she and the others saw their easy smiles and she understood the King's demands at least had not been unreasonable.  
  
"Children, we have some very serious things to discuss with you, so please-" the silversmith found himself rudely cut off by his youngest daughter's crying.  
  
"Wahah!"  
  
Maude walked over to the wall and took Christopher's guitar down. She gave it to her husband.  
  
"You know it won't stop until she sleeps."  
  
"And dad, you know she won't sleep until you sing her to sleep." said Nan.   
  
"Oh alright." Christopher took the guitar and hesitated a moment.  
  
"I think," said Maude, "that Mathew's song would be quite appropriate."  
  
Christopher nodded and while he sang, looked at all his children in turn. With their happy, sleepy little faces and the promise they beheld.   
  
Mathew, an adult already really with his eighteen years, long copper colored curls and slender frame. He sometimes more resembled the Elves he spend so much time with than a human boy. Probably the young man would be a silversmith too, he had learned the trade well and enjoyed the work. Jenny, already such a formidable woman where her personal choices were concerned. The best horse-trainer the village had ever had. Gentle caring Nan, only fourteen and already her mothers image, if not for the looks than for the character. Blond Birdie of twelve, well Jonathan really. Who had taught himself every birdsong he'd heard and rather whistled than spoke. A healer of animals he wished to be. Anna with the long blond ponytail. The little brave Tomboy and the only human the Goblins respected for the pranks she liked to play on them. If there was anyone of the village who knew her way through the Labyrinth and went about without fear, it was she. The auburn Robert of five who also seemed to have inherited his mothers caring nature. And last but not least, little carrot top Cindy. The innocent blank in their midst. What would she choose to be?  
  
What would they be, when the future had arrived for them? Whatever it would be, it would be the future of their own making. No pre-destination, no expectations. His children were so totally free here. So totally without care. Perhaps Jareth was right after all. Perhaps such surroundings were exactly what a traumatized boy and his legendary sister needed. After all, she was only a young girl. Those two would be welcome in his family. As were all the little ones the Good Lord had graced him with. And with that, he did -not- mean Jareth.  
  
Christopher sang his old song of the other life, the Belfast life. Where he and his Maude had been so different for breaching the gaps between animosity, tradition and religion. Everyone they had known wanted a simple, happy life. Everyone wanted peace. Except when a couple was eccentric and strong-minded enough to dare to live those words.  
  
A son of hope they had seen in Mathew. An open question, reflected in a lovely tune.  
  
"Will you stay in our Lovers' Story  
"If you stay you won't be sorry  
"'Cause we believe in you  
"Soon you'll grow so take a chance  
"With a couple of Kooks  
"Hung up on romancing  
  
"We bought a lot of things to keep you warm and dry  
"And a funny old crib on which the paint won't dry  
"I bought you a pair of shoes  
"A trumpet you can blow  
"And a book of rules  
"On what to say to people when they pick on you  
"'Cause if you stay with us you're gonna be pretty Kookie too  
  
"Will you stay in my Lovers' Story  
"If you stay you won't be sorry  
"'Cause we believe in you  
"Soon you'll grow so take a chance  
"With a couple of Kooks  
"Hung up on romancing  
  
"And if you ever have to go to school  
"Remember how they messed up this old fool  
"Don't pick fights with the bullies or the cads  
"'Cause I'm not much cop at punching  
"Other people's Dads  
"And if the homework brings you down  
"Then we'll throw it on the fire  
"And take the car downtown  
  
"Will you stay in our Lovers' Story  
"If you stay you won't be sorry  
"'Cause we believe in you  
"Soon you'll grow so take a chance  
"With a couple of Kooks  
"Hung up on romancing  
  
"Will you stay  
  
  
Sarah had felt like a princess when she looked around the room. She wondered if it might have been Jareth's mothers, for it certainly befitted a queen, and an elegant one at that. Yet in stark contrast to Toby's cozy nursery, this place had a cold, lonely feel about it. As if at one time it had been lovingly prepared and vacated before ever been put to use.  
  
The walls an ceiling had been plastered a warm green, framed with dark wooden decoration. Spirals climbing the corners, golden and wooden leaves sprouting from polished vines. Small multicolored flower fairies tumbled from those vines and populated the walls, flying, playing, making music. Some, half hidden, making love.  
Pink and blue and white their colors were. What was it again little Wendy had told her mother? The girl that went with Peter Pan? Something like the white and pink ones being boys and girls, and the blue ones the sillies who did not yet knew what they were.   
Their dragonfly wings were gold-tipped and sparkling and they shimmered in candlelight and the easy glow of the hearth.  
  
The windows of this room were a lot smaller and there was no balcony. Green stained glass in diamond shape set in heavy oak frames, dark brocade and again with gold embroiled curtains hung at their sides.  
  
Like in Toby's room, the cold gray tiled floor had been covered with furs. Obviously the Goblin King was no PETA member. Or perhaps he had just conjured up the furs, with the glamour of the crystal balls. Could magical fur be accepted as fake?  
  
Sarah shrugged. It was proof of her weariness her mind took to a trail of thought like that. It was indeed way past her bedtime. And the bed looked so inviting. A large four-poster bed with a green heaven and green draperies, both embroidered with gold. Green satin sheets- so soft an embrace to sleep within.  
  
Somewhere a clock rang the hour, but Sarah failed to count the bells. Looking for a bathroom to prepare for bed, she found a working museum of a bathroom, straight out of the nineteenth century, behind the door next to the hearth. A humongous copper bathtub on lions feet, scented bath oil's- Whomever choose them had a strong preference for roses and peaches. Sarah contemplated taking a bath, saw one of the baths feet scrape the floor impatiently and decided a bit peeved she was too tired.  
  
Having finished, Sarah went to the large wardrobe on the other side of the room. Dark oak, a large mirror in one of the doors, tiny goblin faces for locks and hinges. All with hats and helmets firmly pulled over their eyes. Perhaps Sarah imagined it, but it seemed almost if some of the hinges softly protested the injustice of it. And some of the figures on the walls seemed to have moved. Sarah shrugged. Well what would one expect in the Goblin Kings castle. Luckily she had to spend here only one night. She wondered what kind of nightgown she might find, indeed what kind of clothing the King would like for her to wear. She remembered a certain ball gown…  
  
Two very simple cotton dresses, straight, plain, one brown the other midnight blue, both with tight bodices and no sleeves. A slightly nicer dark green one with black lace at the front. Several white shirts or shifts with pleated wide sleeves. Not all that unlike the ones she used to wear Aboveground. A brown woolen cape, brown ankle high boots, several little white caps. In a drawer at the side white underwear and black stockings, of which not much more was to be said than that they were functional. Two straight and long cotton nightshirts without any frivolities added. A simple handmaidens wardrobe.  
  
Sarah stared at the clothes, a gift to be taken with her in the morning. There was a little cloth bag, obviously meant for the transport of the garments. One moment Sarah felt unreasonably angry. Cheated almost. But then she realized that ball gowns were not frocks one usually wore during the daily routine of any village, not even in Kansas. Where she definitely was no longer. Yet the garments were so at odds with the luxurious room, Sarah could not help but to contemplate the difference. Had Jareth brought her here on purpose, so she would see what she would be giving up if she left the castle? He was sneaky enough for such a tease. Smiling to herself Sarah changed into one of the nightgowns. It hugged her body comfortably and felt pleasant to her skin. Its looks therefore deceivingly simple.   
  
Sarah made a round through the room and blew out the candles one by one. She pulled a screen for the hearth, closing of it's dying embers. One candle in hand, she went to the windows. Before closing the curtains, she opened one of them to feel the fresh night air on her face. This room was at the back of the Castle Beyond The Goblin City. It overlooked a lovely palace garden, pale and pristine in the moonlight. Of course featuring another hedge maze, abet a small ornamental one. The scent of roses hung heavy in the air and a peacock crooned in the distance while crickets played their summer waltz.   
  
No owls against the moon.  
  
Sarah sniffed the air wonderingly, for there was something absent she realized had been omnipresent on Earth. She sighed incredulously as she understood. No cars. No gasoline. No distant industry. No modern stench. Just the moon, the white of the graveled garden paths and marble benches and assorted ornaments. And the utter darkness beyond. No streetlights- no sounds of distend traffic. No blinking airplanes in the sky. No distractions. Puzzles, yes. Tests and confrontations. Friends and in the past, adventure. All that one could wish for to feel alive and exited and grow.  
  
And Sarah felt a contentment coming to her very soul. A sense of belonging to the quiet dark and the secretive peace of the surrounding Labyrinth. She nodded to herself knowingly, the lyrics of a song coming to her. The girl chuckled. It seemed one of those things down here. Emotions, occurrences of some importance or just a silly mood drew music to one. Sarah decided to leave the curtains open, closed the window and blew out the candle. With the green filtered and fractured moonlight in her back, she made her way to the bed and gave in to the music she felt gently humming in the air. Open now to anything the Labyrinth had to offer. In the middle of the room she halted, closed her eyes and let flow from her voice what she felt touched inside.  
  
"I have been given  
"one moment from heaven  
"as I am walking  
"surrounded by night,  
"Stars high above me  
"make a wish under moonlight.  
  
"On my way home  
"I remember  
"Only good days.  
"On my way home  
"I remember all the best days.  
"I'm on my way home  
"I can remember  
"every new day  
  
"I move in silence  
"with each step taken  
"snow falling round me  
"like angels in flight  
"Far in the distance  
"Is my wish under moonlight  
  
Sarah shivered as the gentle yet ghostly music died away. It had come to her with her acceptance of the Labyrinth and now the magic left her as if satisfied with this new inhabitant. The song had brought the girl the seed of forgiveness- whatever had befallen her in the past, it had led her to this enchanted world, the place where she could be happy and so in a sense all those miserable times had had their purpose. And now it was time to let go and heal and move forward.  
  
Whether kitchen maid in the castle, servant to Toby's new guardians in that unknown village or whatever else fait might throw at her- here in the Underground she was at peace. For a mere thirteen hours or an eternity, Sarah Williams knew she was home.   
  
  
  
  



End file.
